Whether you use formal or informal style in writing will depend on the assignment itself, its subject, purpose, and audience. Formal language is characterized by the use of standard English, more complex sentence structures, infrequent use of personal pronouns, and lack of colloquial or slang terms. Informal language allows the use of nonstandard English forms, colloquial vocabulary and typically shorter sentence structures. Formal style affects the form of English, the choice of vocabulary, and the use of contractions and pronouns. Standard English is the language used in professional and business communication. It is the form of English that follows the formal rules of the language. Nonstandard English uses regional or social language variations. Nonstandard English should only be used when there is a purpose for it in writing. For example, it can be used in a narrative to describe a person with a specific regional dialect. Otherwise, the standard form of English should be used. Vocabulary needs to be adjusted depending on the level of formality of any written work. Consider the following words: investigate, examine, check out. Each of them has a different level of formality. While check out can be used in informal writing and speech, using it in a formal research paper would not be appropriate. The study checked out the health effects of passive smoking. The study examined the health effects of passive smoking. Use more formal vocabulary and avoid the use of contractions in formal writing. Contractions are more casual, and if you are striving for more formal style, they should not be used. Contractions in negative sentences should be especially avoided since they are easy to miss. The outcomes of the study haven't been documented yet. Restrict the use of personal pronouns in formal writing. The writer's presence, signaled by the use of the personal pronoun I, or we (if there are several authors), can also make writing more informal and less credible. The second sentence is more formal and can be perceived by the audience to be more credible. The Effective Writing Practices Tutorial is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.